ARTS BRIEFING

By Lawrence Van Gelder

Published: September 17, 2003

Correction Appended

HIGHLIGHTS

FLORENCE: DAVID'S BATH -- Michelangelo's 499-year-old David is going to be bathed in full view of the public with compresses of pulped cellulose, rice paper and distilled water. ''We are using the most harmless substance possible, water,'' said Antonio Paolucci, leader of the project, who noted that the 14-foot marble masterpiece will turn 500 next year. ''We want him to show up for his birthday in the best possible condition,'' he said on Monday. Tests on a small patches of the sculpture, covered with grime and dust, were carried out earlier this month, the BBC and Agence France-Presse reported. The cleaning of the Renaissance masterpiece, which has stood inside the Galleria dell'Accademia since 1873, has long been a subject of debate among Italian and foreign experts. Some have warned that the distilled water might go beyond removing dirt and inflict major damage on the statue, leaving it to appear to have been bleached. But Cristina Acidini, who leads the Opificio delle Pietre Dure, a government art-restoration department, defended the current plan, saying, ''Those who know about these things know that it is a treatment so delicate that you could use it on the skin of a baby.

THEATER: FROM ISRAEL -- For the first time in more than four decades the Habimah National Theater of Israel will perform in the United States when it presents two shows during an engagement that begins at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow at Symphony Space. The opening attraction, ''Kaddish L'Naomi,'' performed in Hebrew with English supertitles, is based on Allen Ginsberg's poem ''Kaddish,'' and blends the coming-of-age story of a sensitive child in an American Jewish family with personal and national traumas. The play, repeated at 8 p.m. from Friday through Sunday, stars Gila Almagor, above, who will also appear in performances of her one-woman show, ''Summer of Aviyah,'' at 3 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. Presented in English, ''Summer of Aviyah,'' another coming-of-age story, focuses on the relationship between a mother and daughter.

LONDON: BOOKER SHORT LIST -- Margaret Atwood and three first novelists are among the six finalists for this year's Man Booker Prize. Joining them are Zoë Heller and Damon Galgut, but big names like Martin Amis and J. .M. Coetzee failed to remain in the running for the $80,000 prize open to authors from the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland, the BBC reported. Ms. Atwood, who won in 2000, was on the short list for her 11th novel, the futuristic ''Oryx and Crake.'' Other finalists are Ms. Heller for ''Notes on a Scandal,'' Mr. Galgut for ''The Good Doctor,'' and the three first novelists: Monica Ali for ''Brick Lane,'' Clare Morrall for ''Astonishing Splashes of Color'' and DBC Pierre for ''Vernon God Little.'' The winner is to be announced on Oct. 14.

ANN ARBOR, MICH.: ROMANOV ART -- In what is billed as the first collaboration between an American university and the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, 140 works of fine and decorative arts will go on view beginning on Sunday at the University of Michigan Museum of Art in Ann Arbor. Presented in connection with the university's observance of the 300th anniversary of the founding of St. Petersburg by Peter the Great, ''The Romanovs Collect: European Art From the Hermitage'' includes French paintings, Dutch drawings, Italian sculpture, Wedgwood and Sèvres porcelain and Aubusson tapestries. Highlights include Bernini's sculpture of St. Ambrose, Greuze's ''Portrait of a Young Man in a Hat'' and a Caspar David Friedrich landscape. The show continues through Nov. 23.

LOS ANGELES: DISNEY HALL GALA -- Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg and Catherine Zeta-Jones, Oscar winners all, will play major roles on Oct. 25 in the third and last of the inaugural galas for the new Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. Mr. Spielberg will welcome the audience to the ''Soundstage LA'' gala, devoted to music from -- and inspired by -- Hollywood. Ms. Zeta-Jones, above, and Mr. Hanks will be the hosts. The evening, with singing by Audra McDonald and Josh Groban, will feature the Los Angeles Philharmonic in themes from Hollywood's golden age and its modern era. The program will include the world premiere of ''Soundings,'' written by John Williams for the concert. Mr. Williams and the orchestra's music director, Esa-Pekka Salonen, will share the podium in performances of excerpts from scores by Alfred Newman for ''Wuthering Heights,'' Erich Wolfgang Korngold for ''The Adventures of Robin Hood,'' Bernard Herrmann for ''Vertigo'' and Jerry Goldsmith for ''Planet of the Apes.''

MANHATTAN: RECORD SALE -- A 14th-century Yuan Dynasty blue-and-white flask sold for $5,831,500 yesterday to a buyer identified only as a London-based collector of Chinese art in an auction of Chinese porcelains of the F. Gordon Morrill Collection of Chinese and Chinese export porcelain. Louis Webre, vice president for marketing and media of Doyle New York, the auctioneers, said the price set a world auction record for Chinese porcelain.

FOOTNOTES

Meryl Streep and Jude Law are joining Jim Carrey in the cast of t he Paramount-DreamWorks film ''Lemony Snicket,'' based on Daniel Handler's children's book series, ''Lemony Snicket's a Series of Unfortunate Events.'' The film, about the three orphaned Baudelaire children, is to go before the cameras in November and is planned for release in 2004. . . . The 15th anniversary season of Miller Theater at Columbia University opens at 8 p.m. Friday with ''A Composer Portrait Gallery.'' On the program are works by Conlon Nancarrow, Gyorgy Ligeti, John Adams, Michael Gordon and Benedict Mason.

Photos: On view in Michigan: a work by Hubert Robert from the Hermitage. (Report, below center.) (Photo by State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg)

Correction: September 24, 2003, Wednesday A report in the Arts Briefing column last Wednesday and a review on Saturday about an appearance at Symphony Space in Manhattan by Habimah, the National Theater of Israel, misstated the precedent. The company came to the United States in the 1990's, a spokesman said; the visit was not its first to this country in 40 years.